Humans seem to spend a lot of time looking for permanence.
Our religions are filled with it — they show a longing for an unchanging world without pain or death. God’s greatest asset, if you listen to many a Christian closely, is his permanence. Jesus was there from the beginning, he’ll never go away, you can trust him like you can’t trust people, who betray and wither and die. The world to come will be perfect and uncorrupted. The belief is old — ancient Egyptians believed that the afterlife was just like this world, only perfectly wonderful and happy. There would be no pain, do death, no struggle. It will be this world, but only the good bits.
The world, of course, is always giving the lie to our aspirations for permanence.
I love all seasons (that’s relatively easy to do in Tucson, though summers can get a bit dreadful at times), but Autumn is my favorite. We had some mondo storms this past week in Tucson, unusual summer storms that stuck around for days, dumping rain here and there throughout the day. The temps have been down, and the air, at times, has had that hint of change it, the hint that Autumn is coming. I thrill to that. It’s my favorite time of year, bar none. Partly, it’s the culture around the season — Halloween! Thanksgiving! Monster movies! Partly, it’s food. I’ve just never been as much of a summer food person. I mean, I like gazpacho and all, but I’m always happiest when I’m cooking up a mini storm. I like root vegetables. I like hot soups. Those aren’t things you rush to cook in the Tucson summer, let me tell you.
Underneath all of it, though, is change. Autumn is change, and a change that reminds us that everything goes away. Everything, to quote Doctor Who, has its time, everything dies. That’s why I love all those horror stories that we get to play with as Halloween approaches. They remind us of death and the inevitability of change. Ditto for The Dia de los Muertos procession at the beginning of November (a great Tucson event that I love).
Tucson summers are like winters elsewhere — it’s the season that seems to go on and on and on, grinding you down with the heat. Truthfully, it hasn’t been that bad this year. We’ve had worse summers. But it’s fun to see the mercury going down, fun to feel the change in the air. Fun to be reminded that the heat passes, the cooler days come. It doesn’t matter that it might go right back up again — Tucson “autumns” usually don’t get going until sometime in October — but the mood is on me now. I’m in Autumn mode now.
Change is melancholy, but it is also a source of joy. Even death, that element of change that terrifies so many of us, is part of a grand cycle of life. Autumn is the time to celebrate that change, and put aside silly, childish notions of permanence.
